Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies can be a base for so many things, allowing you to use cut them out into fun shapes and frost and decorate in a variety of ways. From the basic Sugar Cookies recipe to recipes for Eggnog-Frosted Nutmeg Sugar Cookies or Melt-in-Your-Mouth Sugar Cookies, these simple treats will delight your guests.

Since they're made with such simple ingredients--sugar, flour, vanilla, baking powder, a little salt--it's easy to think of sugar cookies as the Plain Janes of cookies. That is, until you break out the cookie cutters and colored sugar, the sprinkles and colored icing, the candy pieces and other adornments. But sugar cookies are more than just show pieces. When you know how to make sugar cookies just right, their understated sweetness and delicate texture are anything but ordinary--even when you eat them plain.